Antibiotic therapy for rheumatic disease

I gave this blog a lot of thought before I decided to share these thoughts with you. I know it is a controversial subject, but I also know of individuals who have been helped by going on the antibiotic protocol. I decided to put the information out there and let you decide for yourselves.

I first became aware of antibiotic therapy for rheumatoid disease about 12 years ago. I had an acquaintance who had lupus, went on the protocol and became much better within a year. I then became more interested and sent for the information for my own use and knowledge. I talked to the people at the Road Back Foundation. The president of the organization at that time was a young woman who had scleroderma and had complete remission due to antibiotic treatment. I sent for the reams of information from that organization and was more than a little impressed. I’m certain a great deal of my interest was because of my feeling of desperation. At the time, I had been ill for about 10 years, and could only get a vague diagnosis of “lupuslike syndrome,” which had my life turned upside down, and I was more than a little frustrated.

I read through all of the literature, ordered a book by Henry Scammell on the subject and was eager to learn more. The book is called “The Arthritis Breakthrough,” published in 1993, and includes the original work of the founder of this whole idea, Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown’s “The Road Back.”

There is too much information to put into this brief blog. Basically, Dr. Brown’s studies began just before WWII, while working with Albert Sabin, of polio vaccine fame, at the Rockefeller Institute. Dr. Brown isolated some fluid from the joint of an arthritis patient and found it contained a bacterialike agent. It was such a small organism, actually smaller than a virus, and eventually came to be called mycoplasma. He found he could rid the patient of this organism by the use of tetracycline and later doxycycline and minocycline, used on a long-term basis. Dr. Brown went on to treat over 10,000 patients.

After the war, he was put in charge of the Veteran’s Administration and later, Dean of Medicine at George Washington University Medical School. He was also a medical consultant to the White House. Dr. Brown estimated his treatment did not work for everyone but believed it effective in 90 percent of his arthritis patients. He was ridiculed by his peers and his theories were not accepted or taken seriously until about three years after his death. They have since been studied by the National Institutes of Health, in the MIRA (Minocycline In Rheumatoid Arthritis) therapy studies, trials. Due to all the controversy about his methods, the results of the NIH studies were not published until 1995 in the “Annals of Internal Medicine.” The studies revealed that at least 50 percent of the patients in the study had shown marked improvement in joint swelling, tenderness and blood work. Similar studies have taken place around the world.

Today, information on this subject can be obtained by calling the the Road Back Foundation located in a city near you, or logging on to RoadBack.org. Next week, I’ll chat with you about my experience with the antibiotic protocol in my own life and disease. Until then, you might want to read about it online.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Falkner-Wood

Sue Falkner-Wood is a retired registered nurse living in Astoria, Ore., with her husband, who is also an R.N. Sue left nursing in 1990 due to chronic pain and other symptoms related to what was eventually...read more

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